Consecration is the idea of giving oneself wholly and fully to God. In Christianity it is often proclaimed as “Giving yourself to the Lord” or “Dedicating one’s life to Christ”. Merriam Webster defines the word as “to devote irrevocably to the worship of God by solemn ceremony.” Although these maybe Christian examples, the idea of dedicating oneself to the holy has deep roots going all the way back to the shamanistic foundations of religion.
In shamanistic cultures consecration was practiced in a physical way. Shamans would often put themselves through excruciating trials in order to achieve visions or receive messages from the spiritual realms. These included fasting, sleep deprivation and even bodily mutilation. “Trance dances” which were performed to the point of total exhaustion were also common in shamanistic cultures. Some North American Indigenous tribes participated in vision quests where fasting was commonplace in order to obtain a meeting with the “Great Spirit.”
“…the vision depends on the liminal state of consciousness from fasting and fatigue”
Remnants of this idea, emptying the body in order to achieve a closer proximity to God can be observed in Christian practices like the Daniel fast.
Members of the indigenous tribes who practiced vision quests often sought isolation in the woods throughout its duration. This removed distractions and allowed the seeker to fully concentrate on the spiritual message being relayed to them. Christians who practice the Daniel Fast are encouraged to couple their fasting and dietary restrictions with dedicated time for prayer, worship and scripture study tuning themselves to receive Gods word. These types of practices pull the idea of consecration from just a mental or abstract concept into the physical realm.
Regardless the idea of consecrating oneself to the Holy or divine requires putting the idea of God at the top of your personal hierarchy and humbling yourself before it. Again going back to the shamanistic fundamental roots of religious practice the indigenous peoples understood this:
Similarly, this type of humility is emphasized in the bible several times.
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” James 4:10
Therefore, consecration requires dedication both physically and mentally to the divine. Listening to a minister breakdown Leviticus he used the burnt offering as a symbol for consecration since this type offering was “wholly and fully” consumed.
The process of consecration is often regarded as a freeing experience. This is because psychologically it helps break down the defensive walls of ego. In Jungian psychology the ego is analogous to an executive, performing a delegation duty to the rest of the psyche. The ego however also does another thing besides run our conscious minds, it builds a personal image of us. The ego constructs how we perceive ourselves consciously. This perception is often an idealized one, sometimes falsely inflated with characteristics or knowledge we don't actually possess. This is why people who are perceived as arrogant or cocky are sometimes referred to as having a "large ego" because they have a grandiose perception of self.
Donald Trump is an anecdotal example of somebody with "a large ego". You can tell he thinks highly of himself and on top of that his ego shows in his reaction to criticism. He often lashes out, downplays or straight up ignores it.
This is because when criticized the ideal image of oneself is under attack. Subconsciously people know this boisterous image they have constructed of themselves is at least if not sometimes entirely a farce. The criticism has the potential of exposing the cracks and hollowness of this image so they lash out or do what they need to to stave off the source of whatever is risking that exposure.
Even though Trump maybe an example of somebody with a large ego the inflation of self is by no means restricted to him. On the contrary the enlargement of the importance of self has become a phenomenon in the West. Author Robert Greene comments on this in his book "The Laws of Human Nature".
"Today, in the Western world, religions and great causes have lost their binding power; we find it hard to believe in them and to satisfy our grandiose energy through identification with a greater power. The need to feel larger and significant, however, does not simply disappear; it is stronger than ever. And absent any other channels, people will tend to direct this energy toward themselves. They will find a way to expand their sense of self, to feel great and superior. Although rarely conscious of this, what they are choosing to idealize and worship is the self."
Symptoms like "social media influencers" and incessant virtue signaling are signs of the narcissistic plight that now runs through our culture. The turning inward towards ourselves and becoming more self-absorbed has led to a collective inflation of our egos. In the Western world we’ve ceased to humble ourselves before the divine and instead have turned towards trends and ideologies centered around personal traits, sexualities, race and other individual characteristics.
Placing God or some form of the divine is the antithesis to the worship of self. As mentioned it lowers the walls of ego. This is because in that humility you come to recognize and accept your inadequacies and insecurities. Therefore, the need for the ego to defend an idealized image is removed because the perception of the ideal is no longer on yourself but is instead posited on the spiritual. In the words of Robert Greene you cease “to idealize and worship the self.”
The divine is necessary because even though the first part, acceptance of oneself is obtainable without the idea of God the individual’s grandiose energy is than redirected towards something potentially hollow and unfulfilling. Things like an obsession with making money, obtaining material goods, worshipping celebrities or mentioned the worship of self and so on take the place of that innate need. This type of phenomenon can be seen in the book of Exodus when the people of Israel demand Aaron (Moses’s brother) to build them an idol to worship while Moses is away at Mount Sinai consulting with the Lord.
“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Exodus 32:1
Aaron than proceeds to gather the golden jewelry and possessions of the people of Israel and constructs a golden calf for them to worship. This story shows that in the absence of God humans will naturally drift away from the spiritual and project their need to worship onto something else. In Exodus it was a golden calf as mentioned in our modern culture it seems to be the self.
The danger in the worship of self is that it requires the inflation of ego and the turning of a blind eye to its opposite, the shadow. The shadow is also a Jungian psychological concept it is the antithesis to our egotistical idealistic image, it is the thing “an individual has no wish to be.” In Jung’s own words:
Shadow can be best understood in how it is created. All of us no matter which part of the world we live in live within a society which inherently has a culture. A culture in turn has a particular set of morals and values and these morals and values encourage certain behaviors while discouraging and punishing others. A cultures morality drives the creation of its laws. Needing to adhere to a code of ethics is required for a human society to function however this naturally leads to the repression of certain instincts and behaviors. For example, most societies around the world encourage monogamous relationships which inherently leads to the suppression of certain sexual desires. Another behavior almost universally discouraged is any act of violence which leads to the repression of our aggressive and domineering tendencies.
When we repress our sexuality or aggression or avarice or whatever other trait is viewed as negative by our culture those desires don’t simply go away. They instead sink from our conscious minds into the unconscious. It’s equitable to law of nature discovered by Einstein. “Energy cannot be created or destroyed only transformed from one form to another.” Just like energy our aggression, our promiscuity, our greed cannot be simply crushed out of existence only transferred from one part of the psyche to another.
Continued repression eventually leads to the bubbling over of the shadow. This boiling over effect usually manifests itself in a fit of rage, a violent act, an affair, etc. In your life you may have witnessed somebody who is normally docile and kind uncharacteristically lash out. Typically, people will come down from this and state something like “I don’t know what came over me” the answer is some underlying and undealt with part of the shadow that had built up an excessive amount of pressure and needed release. Taken to the extreme people will commit reprehensible acts of violence as a result of uncontrolled shadow release. Chris Watts is an example of this, he projected an outwardly appearance of a kind and loving husband and father and by all respects gave the impression of being “normal” eventually the repression of his desires first led to an affair and then to the murder of his family.
A good analogy for this is mold in a house. Imagine you move out your dryer to clean behind it and you notice a small patch of mold on the wall. The patch is minor and you convince yourself it’s of no concern. As a result, you move the dryer back in its spot and pay no attention to it. A few months go by and you start to notice new patches of mold in the basement, it eventually gets to the point that it cannot be ignored. You decide to have the walls opened up and discover there was a water leak and the mold has now rotted the foundation. This situation is analogous to the shadow because if you choose to ignore it and continue to repress your undesirable thoughts and longings it will continue to grow within you and just like the mold behind the walls it eventually gets to the point where it cannot be ignored and bursts through the unconscious into the conscious.
Another negative way shadow comes out is projection. People tend to project unwanted traits within themselves onto other people or even onto groups of people. Somebody who maybe insecure about their own laziness will consistently be complaining about someone or a group of people they interpret as lazy. Instead of confronting that insecurity within themselves they choose to project it outward onto a particular person or group. Pay attention next time someone starts complaining about “welfare bums” or “crackheads” or whichever group of people or individual they choose to target. Pay particular attention to what negative attributes they tie to those people than look for that same type of behavior in that person. This projection is also a defense mechanism because instead of accepting the fault within themselves they choose to attribute that fault onto someone else therefore deflecting their vision from seeing it in themselves and thus maintaining their ideal image.
All of this doesn’t mean in order to satisfy the shadow you must act on all your less than desirable impulses, that type of behavior would cause extreme regression and put us back into an animalistic type of existence. Instead the shadow must be channeled through healthy means. For example, one can channel their need for aggression and competition into a sport or if someone has a need to rule they can channel this need into climbing the ladder of a company progressively obtaining more and more control. If somebody has a need for vanity they can pursue a career as a model or actress. Consuming and creating art is also a great way to release some of the wants of the shadow. Figuring out and dealing with one’s shadow is a very personal journey so a “one size fits all” type of scheme doesn’t work.
The first thing needed to amalgamate shadow into oneself is to define it. As the name implies shadow if not confronted can be blurry and intimidating. However, if one turns themselves around and confronts it the edges become defined and you can start to make sense of it. It becomes a lot less daunting once it’s understood. Defining your shadow and confronting your dark side is the productive way of bringing it from your un-conscious into your conscious. You can almost imagine it as a person, something you can have a conversation with and attempt to comprehend.
As stated earlier people who have not confronted or accepted their insecurities and flaws or “their shadow” become extremely defensive when criticized or in a situation that challenges their idealistic image. This is because they have posited themselves as the ideal and any crack in the veneer exposes the façade of their perceived perfection. When one accepts they are flawed and broken to some degree they can also accept that all of humanity no matter their social status, appearance, wealth, etc. shares this plight of imperfection. This is where the idea of consecrating yourself to God comes into play.
Once you accept humanity is broken and flawed and no matter how much we toil we will never reach perfection you and consequently humanity as a whole loses its top spot in your personal hierarchy. Therefore, something must take its place and throughout human civilization from our shamanistic roots to the last few decades this thing was the idea of God.
Therefore, as mentioned in the worship of oneself ignorance of the shadow is required but also as mentioned if left unacknowledged the repressed shadow will break through the unconscious into the conscious sometimes in violent ways. Projection or the casting of undesirable traits is another way the shadow breaks through, this projection can also happen on a collective scale.
Only two years ago we were in a “Pandemic of the Un-vaxxed” and our prime minister was asking “Do we tolerate these people?”. Even though the science wasn’t definitive at the time whether or not the un-vaxxed were actually contributing to increased spread and “breakthrough cases” were common due to the introduction of the new Omicron variant projecting out the frustrations with the pandemic onto a select group of people is what occurred.
The Nazi’s blamed the troubles of a Germany in dire straits on the Jews, Lenin blamed food shortages in the cities of Russia on the “rich” oppressive Kulak farmers and our modern golden calf blames the problems of our world onto those damn white supremacists, transphobes and misogynists.
As Solzhenitsyn so beautifully wrote in the Gulag Archipelago:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
The need for humility, the need to return to the ways of our shamanistic and religious practices the need for consecration is required. In that, the ego can be deflated the shadow defined and confronted and the projection of our woes onto select groups of people stopped.